Sibyx Adores October

First things first: This time a Pet Triptych.
The cats are Hank (gray) and Simon (tan)

QUOTE FOR THE MONTH:
Literary criticism is not the judging of one man by another (who gave you this right?) but the meeting of two personalities on absolutely equal terms. Therefore: do not judge. Simply describe your reactions. Never write about the author or the work, only about yourself in confrontation with the work or the author. You are allowed to write about yourself. Witold Gombrowicz

Guide to symbols
♬ audio
✔ off my sagging shelves/monthly goal of 10
VM Virago-of-the-month
GR= group read
--------------------------------
***October Current Reads***
✔ Serious Men Manu Joseph f
✔ Arctic Dreams Barry Lopez nf
VMC of the Month/GR
-Done.
Audio (from library):
♬ ✔The Broom of the System David Foster Wallace f
Ongoing
AUGUST, SEPTEMBER New Yorkers.
---------------------------------
99. ♬ Island of Vice Richard Zacks ****1/2
100.#1 ✔The Wedding Group Elizabeth Taylor VMC/GR ****
101.#2 ✔ Intimate: An American Family Portrait Paisley Rekdal memoir ****1/2
102. #3 ✔ How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe Charles Yu sf ***1/2
103. #4 ✔ Crystal Soldier Sharon Lee Steve Miller (Book One in The Crystal Variation).
104. #5✔ Crystal Dragon (book 2 in The Crystal Variation) Sharon Lee Steve Miller
105.#6 ✔Why I Hate Flying: Tales for the Tormented Traveler Henry Mintzberg ***
106. #7 ✔ Balance of Trade Book 3 in The Crystal Variation Sharon LeeSteve Miller****
107. #8 ✔ Jar City Arnaldur Indridason mys ***1/2
108. #9 ✔ The Riddle of the Wren Charles de Lint fantasy/YA ***1/2

On Hold
♬Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury (postponed for a better listening venue than car)
The Barrakee Mystery Arthur Upfield (SEL library -on hold until next FL trip)
PUT DOWN FOR GOOD
✔ Gillespie and I Jane Harris

Best of 2012....
January
✔The Name of the Wind Patrick Rothfuss fantasy *****
✔She Drove Without Stopping Jaimy Gordon contemp fiction ****1/2
February:
The Chanur series: C.J.Cherryh ****1/2 scifi
March:
✔Packing For Mars Mary Roach science *****
♬Life Keith Richards memoir *****
April
✔Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace contemp fiction *****
May
James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon Julie Phillipsbio *****
✔The Call Yannick Murphy ***** (See May Commentary)
June
✔The Rings of Saturn W.G. Sebald ***** somewhere between F and NF
✔Among Others Jo Walton*****fantasy
July
✔✔✔The Castings Trilogy Pamela Freeman****1/2 Fantasy
The Great Age of British Watercolour: 1750-1880 Andrew Wilton***** NF - art.
August
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Elisabeth Tova Bailey nf ****1/2 NF
Keeping it Real Justina Robson sf/fantasy blend
September
Round Mountain Castle Freeman ss *****
Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It Geoff Dyer travel/memoir *****

October Resolution
I will BUY no more than one or two new books and ONLY for a) a group read or b) towards continuing an already-in-progress series. Gifts or books coming in from PBS are what they are.

September
86. ♬ The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Bronte **** classic
87. The Art of Time in Fiction Joan Silber writing/craft ***1/2 or maybe ****
88. ✔#1 River of Gods Ian McDonald sf/cyber ****
89. ✔#2 Cream of Kohlrabi Floyd Skloot ss ****
90. ✔#3 The Soul of Kindness Elizabeth Taylor ****1/2
91. ✔#4 Round Mountain Castle Freeman ss *****
92. Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It Geoff Dyer travel/memoir *****
93. Finished June New Yorkers
94. ✔#5 The Turkish Gambit Boris Akunin mys ***1/2
96. Chasm City Alastair Reynolds sf (part of Revelation Space series) ****
97. Smallbone Deceased Michael Gilbert mys (SEL library) ****1/2
98. Finished July New Yorkers

September Statistics
Total: 12
Men: 7
Women: 3
Classic fiction: 1
Virago: 1
Memoir/natural history: 1
Humorous: 0
SF: 2
Mys: 2
New (to me) Author : 5
Group Read: 1
From PBS: 0
Bought & read right away: 1
Off my shelf: 5
Months of NYers: 2
Ditched: 2 (both audio)

September Reflections
Most surprisingly - I read five books by authors new to me, none of them new to many others, of course. Seven men to three women, and a boatload of New Yorkers. Now I'm only two months behind. Overall I would call it another balanced month, not skewed in any particular direction. I didn't take on anything terribly heavy, though as in the previous month, but September (and October too) tend to be wild and chaotic months, so that is appropriate. 3 of the books I chose to read were heavily recommended by others: Silber, Dyer, Reynolds, but only one of those recommenders was an LT person. I'm noticing, and perhaps also repeating myself, but since joining LT I am become more discriminating about what I read, thus I tend to rate most books between 3 to 5 stars. I'm getting so that even a three star book seems questionable, mainly because my bookshelves groan with unread books that I suspect are in the 4-5 range.......

And now for the most exciting statistic of them all:

September Acquisitions. Celebration Time
1. Chasm City Alastair Reynolds

ONE BOOK! ONE BOOK! ONLY ONE BOOK!!! Not only that but I bought it and immediately read it. Case closed.

On the other hand -- I just added up all my book acquisitions so far this year....... and here is a scary statistic: I've brought in around 100 books...... and I've finished "98" (although, 9-10 months of those are New Yorker magazines....) So overall I am falling behind. I KNOW that, of course, by the way my books are piling up in the bedroom. But it's hard to see it in black and white.

January
1. The New Yorker: December 2011, 3 issues (one double)
2. ✔ Coventry Helen Humphreys F *****
3. The Reavers of Skaith Leigh Brackett Book 3 SF ****1/2 for the trilogy
4. Ender's Game Orson Scott Card SF ****1/2
5. Ender's Shadow Orson Scott Card SF ****
6. ✔Bad Magic Stephan Zielinski Urban fantasy***
7. The Moon Pool A. Merritt Adventure/fantasy/SF classic 1919 ****
8. ♬ Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte /Reread F
9. ✔The Name of the Wind Patrick Rothfuss ***** Fantasy
10. ♬The Man Who Loved China Simon Winchester history ****
11.✔She Drove Without Stopping Jaimy Gordon F **** 1/2
12. ✔One Way of Love Gamel Woolsey ****1/4 Virago fiction
13. The New Yorker: January, 5 issues
14. The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi Susan Ichi Su Moon***** humor

February
15. ♬ The Mistress's Daughter A.M. Homes memoir ****
16. The Pride of Chanur C.J. Cherryh Bk 1 SF ****1/2
17. ✔Mrs Ames E. F. Benson F ****
18. ♬ Nation Terry Pratchett F (alternate uni)
19. Chanur's Legacy C.J. Cherryh Bk 4 SF ****1/2
20. The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination Chrisoula Andreou, ed NF ****
21. Chanur's Venture C.J. Cherryh Bk 2 SF ****
22. ♬ The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris David McCullough NF ****
23.God's Philosophers James Hannam NF ****
24.The Kif Strike Back C.J. Cherrryh Bk 3 SF ****1/2
25.Chanur's Homecoming C.J. Cherryh bk 4 sf ****1/2
26. ✔The Magician King Lev Grossman fantasy ****
27. Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys Dave Barry ****

March Reading:
28. ✔Iris John Bayley Memoir ****1/2
29. February New Yorkers: 3 issues
30. The Highly Sensitive Person Elaine Aron Pysch/Self Help ***3/4
31. The Hidden Life of Deer Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ****1/2 Natural History
32. ✔Something Rotten Jasper Fforde mys ****
33. Packing For Mars Mary Roach space travel *****
34. Bossypants Tina Fey memoir ***1/2
35. ♬ Life Keith Richards autobio *****
36. March New Yorkers.

April
37. ✔Palladian Elizabeth Taylor f, virago ***1/2 (Virago per month)
38. Arjun and the Good Snake Rick Harschmemoir **** (LT author)
39. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever James Tiptree, Jr ss-sf **** (Tiptree gala)
40. ✔Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace contemp F *****(TBR shelves)
41. ✔The Wise Man's Fear Patrick Rothfuss ****1/2 (TBR shelves)

May
42. Nothing Can Make Me Do This David Huddle novel ****1/2
43.♬The Path Between the Seas David McCullough audio ****1/2
44. James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon Julie Phillips bio ****1/2
45. ♬ ✔ Nightwoods Charles Frazier fiction ***1/2
46. April New Yorkers (4)
47. The Girl Who Played With Fire Stieg Larsson (library)****
48.The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Stieg Larsson library
****1/2 for the whole trilogy.
49. ✔ Nobody's Business Penelope Gilliatt May Virago pick SS ****1/2
50. Up the Walls of the World James Tiptree, Jr sf ****
51. ✔ A Rule Against Murder Louise Penny mys#1 of TBR TEN***1/2
52. ✔The Call Yannick Murphy #2 of TBR *****
53. ♬The Cloud Forest Peter Matthiesen travel ****

June
54. MAY New Yorkers (4)
55. #3.✔Kalila and Dimna: Selected Fables of Bidpai retold by Ramsay Wood****
56. #4.✔House of Suns Alastair Reynolds sf ****1/2
57. #5 ✔ The Rings of Saturn W.G. Sebald ***** (A Janet Memorial selection too)
58. #6 ✔The Persimmon Tree and Other Stories Marjorie Barnard VM ****
59. #7 ✔ Innocent Mage Karen Miller***1/4
60. ♬ The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai ***1/2, should be a four, but for the dog.
61. Among Others Jo Walton****1/2 or is it *****?
62. #9✔ Awakened Mage Karen Miller Vol 2 Kingmaker, Kingbreaker ***1/4
63. #10 ✔ The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova ****
64. #11 ✔ Blood Ties Pamela Freeman Bk 1 The Castings Trilogyreread****

July
65.#1 The Great Age of British Watercolour 1750-1880 Andrew Wilton art history *****
66. #2✔ Deep Water Pamela Freeman fantasy ****
67.♬ The Wee Free Men Terry Pratchett Discworld, fantasy. ***1/2
68.#3 ✔ Full Circle Pamela Freeman The Castings Trilogy Bk 3 ****
69.#4 ✔The Sword of Lankor Howard L. Cory fantasy *
70. A Discovery of Witches Deborah Harknessvampire/ Library ***1/2
71.#5 ✔Angel Elizabeth Taylor Virago ****1/2
72. #6✔ A Geography of Time Robert V. Levine nf, sociology ****
73. #7✔ The Monkey's Raincoat Robert Crais mys **** (Janet memorial read)
74.✔8 The Adventures of Alyx Joanna Russ SF ****1/2

August
75! Frost, You Say? A Yankee Monologue Marshall Dodge ***** down east humor
76. Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens ****1/2 f/classic/group
77. #1✔ The Shutter of Snow Emily Holmes Coleman Virago-of-the-month ****1/2
78. Consider Phlebas Iain Banks sf ****1/2
79. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Elisabeth Tova Bailey nf ****1/2
80.#2 ✔Cooking With Fernet Branca James Hamilton-Paterson ****
81. Keeping it Real Justina Robson sf/fantasy ****1/2 sf/antasy
82.#3 ✔ The Prefect Alastair Reynolds #1 in Revelation Space series ****1/2
83.#4 ✔The Time of Our Singing Richard Powers ****
84. #5✔Galactic North Alastair Reynolds sf ****
85. #6✔Started Early Took My Dog Kate Atkinson mys ****

2012 Record of Series I'm Reading or Own, Am Hoarding, or Waiting for the Next One!
Fantasy and SF
1. The Castings Trilogy Pamela Freemanvol 1Blood Ties, vol2Deep Water (current), vol3 Full Circle Finished in July!
2.The Kingkiller Chronicle Patrick Rothfuss vol 1 The Name of the Wind, vol2. Wise Man's Fear vol3. Awaiting next one!
3. Rain Wild Chronicles Robin Hobb vol1. Dragon Keeper, vol2.Dragon Haven, vol3.City of Dragons, vol4. (not out yet) Blood of Dragons(hoarding)
4.A Song of Ice and Fire George R. R. Martin vol1. A Game of Thrones vol2.A Clash of Kings,vol3. A Storm of Swords, vol4.A Feast For Crows vol 5. A Dance With Dragons (hoarding) vol6. Winds of Winter (not out yet), vol7. A Dream of Spring (not out yet)
5. DONE! Revelation Space Alastair Reynolds The Prefect, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, Monkey Suit, Chasm City, Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap,,Galactic North
6. Eric John Stark Leigh Brackett The Secret of Sinharat, People of the Talisman, Outlaw of Mars (have), The Ginger Star, The Hounds of Skaith, The Reavers of Skaith
7. Miles Vorkosigan - Lois McMaster Bujold - won't list but #15 is out, FINAL book in series. Don't have yet.
8.Consider Phlebas Iain Banks First chronologically in the The Culture Next up: Player of Games - this is a reread.
9. The Acacia Trilogy 1.Acacia, 2.The Other Lands, 3.Sacred Band need to quickly reacquaint myself with the story line of the first two before starting third.
10. Quantum Gravity Justina Robson - Keeping it Real, Next up:

Mysteries
1.Inspector Armand Gamache Louise Penny Read: A Fatal Grace, Cruellest Month,Still Life Rule Against Murder Not read: A Beautiful Mystery, A Trick of the Light, The Brutal Telling, Bury Your Dead (in no particular order.....)
2. Jackson Brodie Kate Atkinson Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early Took My Dog (hoarding)
3. NEW! 3. Inspector Hazlerigg Michael Gilbert so far #4 Smallbone Deceased

Hi Lucy! I'm first. :) I know what you mean about getting the first couple of posts to take. I've had that same problem. I'll be back later to catch up on what you've been reading.

I'm second! Looks like a happy couple of pals there.

Guess that makes me third - nice new thread, Lucy!

*Back to say that when you are setting up a new thread, you need to use a different message with each post you are reserving, and then it works fine. For some reason, it doesn't want you to repeat the same post over and over. SO I do this:

Mine

This one, too

And this one

I simply must have another

Or perhaps two

Last one; next one's yours!

I am fourth - Happy new thread for October Lucy.

Hi Lucy!
Great pets - can see why Posie thinks she is a cat and sleeps on the back of the sofa ;-) They are all so CUTE!!!!

btw, I agree with Mamie. I tried to save the first few messages by typing
mine
mine
mine
didn't work.
So, I mix it up now and have no problem.

So, I am NO architech nor carpenter - or anything along those lines. But -
Would a false floor (raised just enough) work as a place for your plumbing in the kitchen?

I love October too, Lucy, especially on your happy new thread!

I've thought about that - but there are some considerations that likely make that a non-option (access to the space under the stairs).

Are your ceilings high? What about big industrial pipes (you know, those big ones with ridges, about 16" in diameter), with the plumbing running through them, fastened up at the ceiling? Painted a nice barn red or a quiet green or a colour which would blend in with the ceiling and disappear visually.

That would do for in, apparently, but not for out....... Out is the real culprit, although I was wondering what about a pump up and then the gravity.... but that would be another thing that could go terribly wrong, I suppose..... mmmmm gray water everywhere.

A wooden fire tower like the firemen have for their hoses, fastened to the house with the pipes running up it? Totally insulated, of course, with a wall-mounted ladder on the inside.

so I'm snorting and laughing, tui. I certainly will pass on yr. suggestion.

I have just had the thought that one could have a foot operated pump. Less to go wrong.

I'm back! I skimmed through your last thread to see what you'd been reading and put the Geoff Dyer book on my library list. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have Round Mountain. That means I'll either buy it or ask them to.

I loved seeing pictures of your house and hearing more about it. I have a friend out here who built a very modern house with a big garage door that opens to her backyard. In the good weather, she leaves it open and then opens the front door and birds fly through her house!

Great picture of all the pets.

ETA: Mamie and Claudia, thanks for the tip on how to reserve the opening posts on a new thread.

Hi Lucy, thanks for the "brief" description of how your house cam to be, on your last thread. I love interesting houses like yours. Im sure the best houses come with some teething problems, but Im also sure you can find solutions to them all too, even if they are found by leaving the box, and looking back in at it! Thanks so much for taking the time.

Hi Lucy- Nice new Thread! Glad you are a fan of October!

Mamie & Claudia- Thanks for the advice on the opening posts of a thread. I was wondering why I was having a problem doing it. You guys are the best.

Another late quarter surge from Lucy! Congratulations on your nice new thread.

Yay for new threads!

I have to put this quote down here too - it struck me hard - it's from a review of an article in the NYer about the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz and is a quote from his journals:

Literary criticism is not the judging of one man by another (who gave you this right?) but the meeting of two personalities on absolutely equal terms. Therefore: do not judge. Simply describe your reactions. Never write about the author or the work, only about yourself in confrontation with the work or the author. You are allowed to write about yourself.

so so so right.

Oops. Despite the fact that this is my third visit to your new thread, I see I've been totally in lurk-mode. I love the picture of the animals, as well as the cat in the bowl picture you posted in my thread--both are fabulous pictures and capture those quirks we love. Posey looks so much smaller up by the cats than she does on her solo pictures.

I imagine you are glad to be back in Vermont. Your house and pond are so lovely, despite the plumbing conundrum.

Great quote!

I think Posey and the big gray cat weigh about the same - somewhere in the range of 17 lbs. Posey is not very big - smallest corgi I've had since my first one.

>15 sibylline:: I'm good at nutbar ideas. Just call out if you need more.

That is a lovely house, although I can't possibly imagine how you would manage to live in it. No walls? What do you hang things on?

I hope you manage to get all your refurbishment/building problems solved with as little hassle and expense as possible!

There is no way I would get my dog and cat to sit so close together without hostilities breaking out!

I have no advice about building issues, but I think your house looks lovely -- and I love the pet photo at the top of the thread!

>25 lunacat: Jenny, the only problem I see with no walls is limited space to put bookshelves. But then, if you get free-standing bookshelves and put them on casters, you can use them for movable walls...

A rare thing with me, but I'm putting down Gillespie and I for good because..... I'm not really feeling a beating heart at the center of it; the book feels clever (extremely) and lifeless. I have felt nauseous once or twice while reading. I don't think it's spoiling to say that the central question is whether character of the first person narrator is telling the truth. I don't care which she is, as it turns out. Either way I can't stand her. I also wasn't quite transported into the 1870's. Not at all without merit, my friends, for the right sort of reader. DON"T, I beg of you, decide not to read it on the basis of my response. I occasionally have a strong negative reactiuon to a book or movie many other people love. This feels like one of those occasions. But, in fact, I don't even want the book in my house, so if you are interested, I'd be happy to pass it on.

Lucy- I PMed you!

I just came up with the phrase a 'puzzle book' - I think that intellectually it could be very satisfying to read carefully and pick up clues......

I just came up with the phrase a 'puzzle book' - I think that intellectually it could be very satisfying to read carefully and pick up clues......

all yours, Mark

Wow, that's a visceral reaction to a book! I loved that one but of course respect your opinion. Harriet was pretty horrible and the more I've thought about the book the more horrible she becomes.

I know - it is quite irrational too. Quite possible that in another state of mind I would have at least tolerated it.

After four or five gloomy rainy days we have some sun. First I've seen since returning from Florida.

I'm picking up Manu Joseph's Serious Men It looks like just the right thing.

Confession: Picked up a FREE book yesterday (off shelf at one of the nearby public libraries) - Don de Lillo's Underworld.

Lucy, your words about Gillespie and I reiterate the value of your opening quote, something I will keep in mind. It helps explain why books can be polarizing. I frequently go against the grain of public opinion, but I try to stay true to my gut reaction, though I can't always explain my feelings as well as you. I also loved your 'September Reflections'. Congratulations on acquiring only one book for the month. Library book sale coming up for me later this month. I'm in trouble!

>21 sibylline:. Lucy quoted: Literary criticism is not the judging of one man by another (who gave you this right?) but the meeting of two personalities on absolutely equal terms. Therefore: do not judge. Simply describe your reactions. Never write about the author or the work, only about yourself in confrontation with the work or the author. You are allowed to write about yourself.

I've been moodling over your quote about lit crit. I wonder if there isn't something missing in what Gombrowicz has to say about the issue. The very best writers, I think, invite some sort of discussion or dialogue or a connection of some kind between the writer and the reader. My favorite, most memorable reads are those where I find myself arguing with the author--whether that argument takes the form of agreement or disagreement. Reading is a dialogue, not a one-way response, which Gombrowicz seems to imply.

I know that writers hate critics, but the best critics are readers first. And the best readers are critics ("critic" in the sense of someone who offers a judgement of value, truth, beauty, technique, etc.). IMHO

Additionally, it's silly to think that we meet writers on "absolutely equal terms." I don't even know what that means. I can read War and Peace and have a dialogue with Tolstoy about power, warfare, courage, ambition, family--but I don't meet him on equal terms on any of those themes. Why do we read? Well, for pleasure or for information or to pass the time. But also, we read to be touched by minds who have thought deeply about large ideas--in order to expand our own thinking.

In post #29 you describe your reaction to a book you're reading, saying it "feels" clever and lifeless. Is there a difference between saying that and saying, "The book is clever and lifeless"? I was taught that the reader should assume words written by a writer are her words--so inserting a filter such as "it feels" or "I think" (which is what Gombrowicz seems to be saying is necessary) is not only unnecessary but also somehow dilutes what a person has to say. Am I wrong?

Our relationship with reading is such a personal thing. I feel that I'm giving that author a (sometimes large) chunk of my life, so it has to be worthwhile or why bother, life being short and all that. As I get older, spending time in a book with violence, degradation, viciousness, egregious cruelty, maggoty characters, and the like, just isn't on. I might have read about these things (if they were germaine to the plot) when I was younger but in my middling years, with a certain amount of life experience under my belt, I don't want to. I want to be expanded by beauty (which means many things) or gentled with rip-snorting humour.

When there are so many books waiting out there which can really shake the old brain out, fluff it up and refold it nicely, I'm all for tossing the ones that don't.

ETA: Becky, we were writing at the same time. Very thoughtful comments.
ETAII: I said Mark, originally, because I had read something by Mark and the name got stuck in the wrong place in tiny brain, Sorry, Becky!

Mark, I love your comments on why we read -- especially "we read to be touched by minds who have thought deeply about large ideas--in order to expand our own thinking." Well said!!

I've trolled through my thread -- can't find Mark's comment??

Tui, I'm with you there - but I will read a violent and difficult book that has heart and soul - say - David Foster Wallace's opus where all my usual rules were suspended. (That's just one book that comes leaping to mind.)

As ever I love your feistiness Becky. I don't view Gombrowicz's statement as the end-all and be-all, but it does suit my style and approach to reading and art in general. I like to leave doors open. I prefer also to speak only for myself and am generally careful not to say that because I didn't like a book, movie, painting etc. that it is therefore bad or no good or worthless or whatever.

I would hazard that G means connection and dialogue exactly the way you describe it, and that first and foremost that is what he wants to imply by saying that the reader and writer 'meet as equals'. I interpret that to mean simply that your responses matter, and, by implication that no two responses are going to be the same. And that is the crux of the matter. I use the word "feel" 'or "think" as indicators that I am not imposing a blanket judgement on the book. Just because I found it lifeless and clever doesn't mean everyone will. I have no idea what anyone else will feel.

You are simply you and different from me which in my book is all good. Right and wrong doesn't enter into responses to artwork of any kind for me.

For me, definitely, Mark, G&I wasn't going to expand anything.....

HI Lucy. Just catching up. I enjoyed the picture of your house and descriptions of your house (although I can't really imagine a house like that) and have added Michael Gilbert's books to my wishlist.

Back to say I was just reading an article that stunned me - during the day on Mars the little rover, Curiosity, is clocking temps as high as 43 F. -It goes to -90 F or so at night, but still. Incredible. And it's winter right now where the little craft is. Hmmm back after reading more - it goes up as high as 70 F at the equator and as low as -225 F at the poles. I'm realizing I must have made assumptions. So easy not to bother inquiring about something when you think you know. It's a conundrum, for sure.

>39 sibylline:. Lucy wrote: I've trolled through my thread -- can't find Mark's comment??

I think I was confused for Mark, since I'm the one who wrote, (ref 38) "touched by minds," and tiffin (ref 37) and I were "writing at the same time."

You're free, of course, to interpret what he said any way you want, but you can't correctly put quotation marks around "meet as equals" as if that's what Gombrowicz wrote, because that's not what he wrote--that's what you wrote. He wrote, "meeting of two personalities on absolutely equal terms" (emphasis mine). His phrase is more weighted and politically nuanced than your version. Just sayin'.

I'm painting my office today and maybe the fumes are getting to me (grin).

Yes Becky, you were. I'm chagrined and sorry!! (But I still really like the comment)

>43 RebaRelishesReading:. Oh gee, don't be sorry. I don't know Mark, but from what I've seen of his comments here, I'm flattered by the confusion. --I'm not sure how he might feel about it, though. Ha.

You are quite right, B., about the misquote. I was rushing because I was being bad and not doing what I was supposed to be doing, never a good idea, but so interested in yr. comments that I couldn't resist, ANYWAY. In a way this is a case in point. I read the phrase differently from you - as a very thorough, considered way of saying 'meet as equals-' or I suppose you could expand it to mean something closer to 'meeting on equal terms' - of course, too - although I think the most revelatory piece of these remarks is when he says that there need be no 'confrontation'. It is much harder, ultimately, to plumb one's own depths for a true response, a genuine response to any kind of art, what the work evokes in you, he is saying, I think, is all that is important (to him).

>42 labwriter:: yes, Becky: apologies for that. I had read something by Mark and then just stuck his name in.

>36 labwriter: In post #29 you describe your reaction to a book you're reading, saying it "feels" clever and lifeless. Is there a difference between saying that and saying, "The book is clever and lifeless"? I was taught that the reader should assume words written by a writer are her words--so inserting a filter such as "it feels" or "I think" (which is what Gombrowicz seems to be saying is necessary) is not only unnecessary but also somehow dilutes what a person has to say. Am I wrong?

I find that so interesting.
I always say "I feel" or "imo" in my reviews as me stating that a book is this that or the other thing is just too concrete a statement, as it only is those things to me.
But it could be the case that the very act of it being me writing the review is enough for people to know its my own opinion Im spouting.
Im such a Libran.

I find that I start adding phrases such as "to me it felt" if I'm being critical, particularly if I'm talking about an area where there are already conflicting opinions out there, or where I know I tend to get prickly but others may well not have a problem. It seems somehow wrong to me to say "this is" when I know others think "this isn't". :)

Conversely, I do say "the writing is beautiful" rather than "I found the writing beautiful" - presumably no-one objects to sweeping generalisations in a compliment!

Catching up... Great new October thread, Lucy. I see the pets have all settled comfortably on the couch, ready for the colder months.

I understand about what you call your 'feelings' re. G&I. It is an individual thing, sometimes a book hits a negative note with us for reasons we can't explain. I am sensitive when a book feels 'dishonest' for me, or 'cleverly made for the market'. I remember this was the case with the widely beloved Song of Achilles, but that was my individual response to the book.

Re. G&I... I liked it a lot, and it is possible that the great audio narration made a difference. I can't say I felt the late 1800s came to life, not at all, but there was something that drew me in although I found some parts creepy (but in a good way).

I just can't resist jumping in too...... I would never write "I think" and never, ever, ever, "I feel" in an academic paper, but in a review for LT - sure! I just reread post 21, and I still think (!) that he is speaking against ad hominem arguments. His whole approach sounds Hayakawa - ish, in that what you can say truthfully is what you observe and understand. On the other hand, if I read something that has bunches of subject/verb problems or dangling modifiers or misuse of words in narration (i.e. not in an ignorant character's conversation), I will certainly point those out. That's talking about the work itself, and I see that as a valid, objective fact not open to interpretation.
And, Nathalie, I recall that you made me feel better about my less-than-over-the moon response to Song of Achilles. I didn't mind it as much as you did, but I would never have given it a prize. That and my l-t-o-t-m response to *G & I* have left me feeling a bit dubious of my taste these days.

I love this discussion and I thought about it a lot last night.

It seems to me that there are both objective and subjective aspects to evaluating a piece of writing (or any art). From a craft angle, especially, as I am a writer I think/feel/know I can say (about some random book) "This book is poorly written, plotted, executed, etc." because I know I can back up my statement with examples. But when it comes to .... whatever it is that went wrong for me here..... it's entirely subjective, my response is so much a reflection of me, that I do want to distinguish it from the objective. I would again hazard that W.G. was thinking of 'the reader' - not as fellow writer criticizing craft issues of fellow writer - and addressing his remarks to the subjective aspect of how we take in creative work. I do believe it is an important distinction to make.

Wonderfully well put Nathalie.

Peggy - we are cross-posting and saying the same thing......

Lots of Mark talk being passed around! LOL. As long as it's good, I'll take credit for it!

Becky- "I don't know Mark" What??

>39 sibylline:: I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series...right out of my usual comfort zone.

>50 LizzieD:: Peggy, I struggled with writing reviews here because I too come out of an academic background; I felt like I was sounding like a pompous arse at times, rather than just a reader saying what she had experienced while reading a certain book. Now I worry about using "I think" too much.

>51 sibylline:: so do I, Lucy!
It's funny how a humdinger of a tale with wonderful characters can allow me to forgive the odd grammatical slip up, whereas if the story is ho hum and the characters are flops, those things just scream at me and I get all nitpicky. I take it as a given that an LT review is that individual's experience of the book, it doesn't need a qualifier. However, I have found that certain reviewers have reading tastes akin to my own or are ones who are so careful in how they review, that if these folks are saying "I loved this" or "This one left me flat", I trust their perceptions enough to try new things or avoid certain others. I welcome their subjectivity.

It may be semantical hair-splitting, but if you are describing your reactions to a certain work, aren't those reactions a form of judging?

Such a great discussion--which happens a lot on your thread, Lucy.

Lucy, I assume, since you mentioned that you've been trying to catch up on reading your back-dated New Yorkers, you found the Gombrowicz quotation in the July 30, 2012 edition in a book reivew of Gombrowicz's diary. I no longer have my NYer subscription, so I can't read the entire article--just the teaser blurb on the NYer website--and therefore I have no context for the quotation, and so it's a bit harder for me to hazard any guesses as to what he may or may not have meant. I was responding to "'the words on the page," so to speak.

I'm just guessing that he had a certain amount of heartburn for "critics" (meaning, those who write about art/literature for a living), since his 1952 novel, Ferdydurke was panned as "the ravings of a madman" (this according to the teaser blurb of the NYer article). So I'm guessing that when he starts out that quotation with Literary criticism is not the judging of one man by another, he was referring to such critics-for-hire. And I'm wondering, if the critics had loved his novel, would he have had the same negative response to the judgment of literary critics?

According to some of the comments here, I guess I need to run over to my thread and add a disclaimer: "WARNING: All opinions expressed by the owner of this thread are the opinions of the owner of this thread."

Mark?! Sorry, my brain is like s sieve. I was away from LT for several months and I'm having trouble catching up with people again. I will go star your thread--right this minute. (grin)

Fun discussion to read here, Lucy. I'm very much on the "what you bring to the conversation" with the writer end of the spectrum.

You may be right about the critics not liking him, B. he is a 'difficult' read although I found the one book I have read rewarding in the extreme (not so much at the time - but the work is often in my mind years later).

That said, I'm not sure it is fair to say, well because critics didn't like his work, he didn't like them back, so his remark is based on that and therefore suspect or dismissible... I think, based on the little I know, he was more like Joyce, say, and while certainly a flawed person and arguably egotistical etc, was also in fact a genius and knew it, knew what he was about as Joyce did with Finnegan's Wake and was well aware that it was unlikely his work would be understood or liked or appreciated in his time, if ever.

As I understand any use of the word 'judge' brings with it a weightiness and wider connotation from its origins as primarily a legal term. If I go so far as to make a judgement about a piece of art, I am recommending or not recommending it. My lack of engagement or liking for a book of this type seems absolutely to be mostly a matter of 'taste' which is too personal, too subjective to be applied liberally as a 'stay away' or a 'recommendation'.

Dragon Tattoo is a case in point, Tui, there is something in that book that compelled me too, a passion feeding it, a soul? It felt to me that it was about more than the clever plot the whole time I was reading it. The characters evolve, for one.

As an aside. One can, when familiar with a critic, learn to use them. I remember for years that anytime Pauline Kael went wild over something, I knew I would loathe it. We sometimes disliked the same movies, often, in fact, but she had a certain type of movie that she would sort of shilly shally about and give a blah, I-was-so-bored-nothing-happened kind of rating, and those were ones I usually adored. She was someone who had no problem shouting from the rooftops about what you should or should not pay attention to - fine for her - but not my style. Overall she was a pretty good judge of what movies had real lasting value, but she was not a good guide for what I would enjoy.

I was talking to the spousal unit about this and he reminded me of the time that we walked out of the movie"Body Heat" - both of us found it utterly repellant, with no moral point or center - a jeu, where nasty people ruined other people's lives for the hell of it. Not my thing. Lots of folks we knew were utterly baffled.

she would sort of shilly shally about and give a blah, I-was-so-bored-nothing-happened kind of rating, and those were ones I usually adored
hehe, I am the same way about the books my RL book club say that about :)

So I have to put this story out here because it is just unbelievable:

fresh from my newsrag - The Week:

Bordeaux, France
French nobles swindled: A Frenchman is on trial for allegedly brainwashing and robbing three generations of an aristocratic family. Thierry Tilly, 48, is said to have convinced the wealthy, titled Vedrines family that he was a master spy and a representative of an ancient order fighting dark forces that were plotting against them. Prosecutors said that Tilly persuaded 11 members of the family to barricade themselves inside their chateau from 1999 to 2006 and sign over to him assets worth more than $5 million. "We were so paranoid that we could no longer think straight," said Ghislaine de Vedrines Marchand.

mouth agape --- speechless

Huh. I'm in the wrong line of work.

Hi Lucy,
Loving the house pictures- my SU's parents are both architects so I have a passing knowledge of the subject, and I think your design sounds great. I love the view of the trees through your doors - what a wonderous place that must be to sit and read.
Your story of how the house came into being reminds me of a TV show we have here in the UK "Grand Designs"- a show about people building the houses of their dreams. Has that made it "over the pond"?

Probably it has but I haven't seen it - but I don't have live tv and depend on Netflix for everything. It probably is something we might enjoy. We took the first step toward the downstairs kitchen today ordering a very fancy refrigerator. It won't look all that fancy, it's not the 'high design' but the invisibles - it is designed for 'off the grid' houses - and has options like a lower and upper compartment that have separate thermostats and very thorough insulation - Sunfrost or something like that. They aren't metal either, so no magnets on it. EVERYTHING is on our refrigerator, so this is a bit hard to imagine. We'll think of something, I'm sure. The outer surface is Formica - so then we had to look at a million options.

Tomorrow I'm going off for a couple of days to a harp thing - not taking the computer, I always lug it there and am too busy to use it, so this time I'm going to be smart. Long drive down to New Brunswick NJ.

Have a great weekend everyone. I probably won't be able to resist checking LT threads on my phone, but it's so impossible to write anything much that likely I will only lurk.

Enjoy your harp thing Lucy.

Have a nice weekend Lucy!

Wish you a lovely weekend Lucy!

Very much enjoyed your discussion about reading and reviews up there. :)

Have a great weekend, Lucy! Hope it's a pretty fall drive.

Fascinating discussion re: book reveiwing. I probably state my position too boldly, but I do make an attempt not to attack an author. Even if said author is a hack or someone who should investigate another line of work, there's a lot of time spent on getting a book out there. On the other hand, I have no problem saying that a particular work is (insert any synonym for "not good" here). Others may love it, I might loathe it; that's what makes reading and life interesting, eye-opening, and fun.

Hoping you have a beautiful week-end, Lucy.

Woman, do you not ever stay home? Have fun.

Lucy, I'm late swinging by your new thread, but I love the photo of Hank, Simon, and Posey!
I hope you are enjoying your harp event (?) and are getting in a bit of lurking. :-)

Hope you had a great weekend! :)

99. ****

Island of Vice Richard Zacks (audio)

Imagine hastily picking out an audiobook at the library to listen to on a long car ride, aware that lately, nothing pleases, but that, generally, unless it is too bloody, history and biography of interesting people usually satisfies well enough...... so I pick out Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York by Richard Zacks thinking, my Dad’s side of the family when they all left their family farms in upstate NY and Vermont became hard core Manhattanites for three generations, so..... I start listening, and the first few chapters, a couple of disks worth, are all about the vice in NYC in the early 1890's and exactly how the police force, palms greased - and I mean to the tune of thousands of dollars, were blind to everything from brothels a block from their precinct houses to food carts and street vendors dangerously cluttering narrow streets. Enter Teddy Roosevelt, at loose ends, chosen by the new anti-Tammany republican reform mayor to head up the then 4 man Police Commission. At this my ears pricked up a bit. I'm thinking, now wait a minute, wasn't my great-grandfather something like a police commissioner in NYC briefly in the late 1890's? About two seconds letter, the historian names the other commissioners, and lo! there is Himself the Ancestral Dude. Avery D. Andrews was then 31 a West Pointer, and had just been appointed in a somewhat 'unworldly' way (this was an audio book, so I can't quote exactly) to this post also by the mayor after he wrote him a letter detailing some reform ideas he had...... he was a 'non-political Democrat' whatever that is.... anyhow...... Enter TR - and the two other commissioners, Parker and Grant (as in a son of Ulysses) and you have the four commissioners in what was supposed to be a bi-partisan board. At first everything was marvelous. But the personalities of Parker and Roosevelt gradually begin to clash - the one utterly impulsive, enthusiastic, energetic, extroverted and the other secretive, cautious and introverted. The sad thing is that both - really - all four members of the board were totally committed to reform and reform was sorely needed, but within six-eight months got utterly bollixed up with in-fighting. So how does Avery D. come off? Well, it is a bit much to hear your ggpa referred to as resembling a ‘soggy bandaid attached to Roosevelt‘ - but he was I think starstruck by the man, and deferred to him in all things. Honestly, had Roosevelt been less intense, more reform might have been possible, but he certainly shook the place down and introduced his unshakeable belief that the police, hired by the people, paid for by the people, should work for the people, and in particular, the average law-abiding joe and jane - NY's finest at that moment was anything but fine, so this was revolutionary. TR was too much trouble and in the end the party machine bumped him up to Under Secretary of the Navy after McKinley’s election, and only three years later when McK ran again, T.R. having quit his post at the Navy to shine at San Juan Hill, now a national hero, became Governor of New York - driving the ‘machine‘ half-mad AGAIN in no time, so they bumped him out and up to V.P. - and from there......
As for Andrews, he gracefully resigned soon after TR’s departure, but not before he instituted three reforms that I think are really spectacular - and show his personality when he wasn’t being a sticking plaster. 1) He was a bicycling maniac and started a bicycle squad to chase runaway horses and carriages with great success. 2) Then, after an incident where two policemen failed to shoot a rabid dog, but did shoot a passerby, the West Pointer in him couldn’t stand it and he arranged at an Armory for target practice and lessons in how to care for your gun - at this point the police did not issue weapons, you came with your own ‘piece’ - and an astonishing number of police had guns with no clue to how to use them. Gradually the force cycled through the lessons, and they were so popular and obviously a good idea that it became standard. Lastly he became enthused about a method, ‘Bertillon’ (hope the spelling is right) of identifying people by measurement of cranium, arm length etc. (this is before fingerprinting) and also decided it would be much better if the police took their own mugshots (before this they would walk criminals to a nearby photographer's studio) and kept more organized records. I know he lived to be 96 and that he was a bit of a bore and a stickler, but nonetheless I was tickled to death to come across him in this surprising way. Less helpfully, his own enthusiasm for TR’s methods of going out and tramping the streets for violations committed by policemen, may have sped up the disastrous attempt to close pubs on Sundays which led to all kinds of terrible mischief and the end of public support for reform. Best of all none of my siblings know of this book, so my Christmas buying has been simplified and author Zack will be thrilled by a sudden bump in sales, that is, provided I can keep my own big mouth shut for almost three more months. ****

I cannot possibly say whether anyone else would get out of the book what I did, obviously. Certainly any TR fan or any Manhattan, turn-of-the-century fan would get plenty, but it’s not exactly earth-shaking stuff. I do wonder how it ended up in our tiny little library. But I’m glad it did. What a find.

Edited for numerous and egregious typos........

Hi Lucy!
Hope you had fun at the "harp thing".
Welcome home???

That one's been on my list for a bit. Glad you liked it!

#71: Adding that one to the BlackHole. I am a big TR fan. Thanks for the recommendation, Lucy!

>71 sibylline:. How fun to find your g-grandfather discussed in such a book.

Well isn't that fun, finding your ggpa in a book, sticking plaster notwithstanding. I do like his reforms too. Hope none of your sibs read Lib. Thing.

How exciting, to encounter an ancestor unexpectedly in a book!

A fun review and how thrilling to suddenly land on one of your family members practically out of the blue! Guess it's time to start thinking about Christmas gifts then eh?

Lucy, I loved reading about your great grandfather and hope it isn't too burdensome to keep the secret until Christmas because it sounds like the perfect gift for your brothers and sisters.

Oh how cool is that, the unexpected appearance of Ancestral Dude!

Good review of Island of vice and you had the chance to read about a family member too. How cool is that?
I liked the book but it ran out of gas in the last third for me, much like the reform efforts.

That's a very nice discovery to make! And yay for having Christmas presents sorted as well. And there are worse things to be called than a soggy bandaid ;)

100!!!
Just finished Elizabeth Taylor's novel The Wedding Group but I can't write more as I'm on my phone which lacks brackets and other LT necessities. I'm excited to make the century mark w/ this book as we are reading Taylor in the Virago Group in honor of her centenary.

I'm going to go down a few comments now that I'm home again to write a proper review.

Ancestral Dude is a very cool discovery indeed. And I'm thrilled to see Taylor as your 100th!!

>71 sibylline: Oh my, I think we might be related...Andrews was a cousin of my 2x-great grandma.

Loved your review!

Well how cool is that? I got rellies on LT after all.

And a specially cool one at that, I might add.

>>#71

I've just read Douglas Starr's The Killer Of Little Shepherds, a rather gruesome account of a serial killer in late 19th century France - BUT - in parallel with that story it talks a lot about the birth of forensic science and the standardisation of police methods that was happening at the same time (a great many things we take for granted today had their origins in France at the time), and it refers quite a lot to Alphonse Bertillon and his development of methods for identifying criminals by "anthropometry" - which required taking photographs in fullface and profile - and eventually fingerprints. (It also makes the point that Bertillon probably would have won the Nobel Prize for his work if he hadn't damaged his reputation by interfering in the Dreyfus Affair.) Fascinating stuff, if you have a strong stomach!

Isn't it fascinating how things overlap? Here you are reading about Bertillon and me too...... synchronicity rules.

Lucy - congratulations on reaching 100 books. Loved catching up with the debate on reviewing styles and believe that honesty is the best policy - we have to say it as we see it!

Great fun to read your review! And I am SO envious that you have reached the 100 mark. GOOD for you!!!!!

100. ****

The general consensus is that this is not Taylor at her very best, and I can't really argue. One becomes accustomed to sharp insights that come to balanced but unflinching conclusions about the general boneheadedness of human beings, yet in The Wedding Group (and what exactly is that title all about?) the story seems to simply do a fade out, literally with all but a few characters dispersing somewhat haphazardly, some reluctantly, some gladly..... Furthermore matters end quite 'well' as in 'happily' for almost everyone, even the cleaning lady will have a new and interesting job. And yet, my guess is, that on a second or even third reading, a structure would emerge as sturdy as a well-conceived painting or a house - and houses - the cosy or bleak, genteel or homespun play strong roles in the book. Perhaps a hidden theme is what makes a home a home? All along, Midge's essential warmth perhaps is hinted at in the fact that she lives in a truly lovely house that she has made that way herself. Is Taylor saying we make our environments but then our environments remake us, or trap us, or make us better, or worse? Inevitably when one begins to look underneath the surface of a Taylor book, the structure, neat and careful and strong does emerge.

Lucy, I like your assessment of the Taylor book. It wasn't her best and yet I liked it for all the reasons I like Taylor's writing. Oh, and the title? It comes from an item sold in the antique shop, which Cressy gives to Midge. I imagined it to be like a figurine of a group of people, although I'm not certain about that. And why it became the title, I've no idea.

And that was one of the most interesting and ambiguous moments of the book, no?, when Midge 'lets' Tim get too close to it and he breaks it. Taylor is so tricky, you know it means something.

Congratulations on hitting the 100 book mark, Lucy!!

Hope your music/harp thing is going well.

Oh I'm home from it, Roni - long long drive down to New Brunswick NJ Friday (horrid traffic) and home again Sunday afternoon..... (decent ride, moderate traffic and home before it got fully dark). I learned three tunes, one with a hopelessly unspellable or pronounceable gaelic name, so I won't even try, a jig called "The Green Fields of Woodford" and a lovely air called "Molly St. George". Lots of good talk with people who are getting to be old friends.

I don't have that Taylor book, but I don't think I'll go out of my way to get my hands on it either. Your thoughts on it are interesting, as I'm sure she is, even if not at her best.

One hundred!
And some good tunes. Ahhh!

Congratulations on reading 100 books Lucy!

Congrats on reaching a 100 books and some nice one's there are.

>93 sibylline:: Taylor is so tricky, you know it means something.
Yes ... that's a great example ... as are the diamonds in the rice.

101. ****1/2

Paisley Rekdal, of Chinese/white heritage, has written, in Intimate: An American Family Photo Album what I think of as a themed memoir, parallelling her own story with another passionate interest, the photographs of Edward Curtis. The text alternates between poetry inspired by specific photographs, historical and speculative vignettes of Curtis and his Crow assistant, Alexander Upshaw, and reflection on her own childhood and her parents, with the closest focus on the recent past when her mother was in the hospital for an operation on a cancer. There are no grand conclusions, more a search for connections and understanding about ethnicity. Rekdal ‘looks’ a bit exotic, but it is not dramatic and therefore, people are often puzzled by her in a way she has found unsettling, as if, by not being identifiable, she isn’t really visible and isn’t considered ‘whole’. The Indians, during the time Curtis was photographing them, were vanishing. Upshaw was a prime example of a person who was ‘between worlds’ - educated at the school in Carlisle and never really brought up in the traditional manner as his mother had chosen to live in a town and work as a seamstress for as long as she could make that work. Does the book work? It did for me - I like this kind of memoir that isn’t just focussed on the self - it’s definitely a ‘sub’ genre of the memoir field that often lifts what could be a exercise in self indulgence, to a meaningful and illuminating reading experience. ****1/2

I know it looks as if I've been reading up a storm the last few days, but I haven't - I had all these books going for a couple of weeks and somehow they all finished up at the same time. Now I'm starting all over, practically from scratch.

Great reviews!
and
CONGRATS on 101!
Go Lucy!

Congrats on reaching 100+, Lucy, and I love love love the story of finding your great grandfather in the audiobook! What a treat.
(and I'm impressed that you know what your great grandfather was doing in NYC in the 1890s)

Ellen, I'm glad you enjoyed the Vice review. I hesitated about whether to mention the whole thing and then thought, well, oh why not? I knew very little about him - mainly the 'lore' that passed down had to do with his bicycle fanaticism and I had this vague memory of it being attached to his having been a police commissioner, which always sounded surreal, knowing my family as I do..... I've read up on him now and he went on to be pres. of a big ashphalt company (being a bicycling enthusiast, probably part of his master plan) as well as doing another stint in the army for ww1 and writing what I remember my father saying are the world's most boring memoirs ever. I've been meaning to try to track it down, to at least OWN it, even if I never succeed in reading it.

being a bicycling enthusiast, probably part of his master plan
LOL --- oh yeah, pave it all! That was before mountain bikes.....
My father was a published poet and it's interesting to go back and read some of his work. I understand very little of it and he was never going to be considered a serious talent, but it's still somehow very important and meaningful to have those words on paper.

A propos of nothing - today I am mulling over the unbelievable weirdness of the word

WEBINAR

It makes perfect sense, and I'm sure in a very short time will be assimilated fully into our 'new' cyber vocabulary. But it is a very funny word. Had I heard it before the worldwideweb was invented, say, while playing Dictionary, I might have defined it thus:

Webinar: Noun. An obscure Icelandic martial art derived from close study of spiders during long winters lying in bed to keep warm.

or..... well ..... you tell me.

Congratulations on 101!!!!! I hope you've put that on the backslapping thread!!

No ideas at the moment about "webinar."

Webinar: noun. Fabric used to make lightweight long underwear.

Webinar: subliminal advertising using trained spiders who produce company logos on their webs, leaving them in strategic places (bushes, veranda posts, etc.)

Lucy- Great review of "Intimate"! I'll have to add that one to the list! I think your touchstones are wrong.

Thanks Mark, I hope I fixed the touchstone by adding the subtitle?

On to book 102.

102. ***1/2

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is a flawed but interesting book, not quite science fiction, not quite metafiction. Once in a while it gets too clever for its own good, then it swings the other way, Maybe we spend most of our decades being someone else, avoiding ourselves, maybe a man is only himself, his true self, for a few days in his entire life. or this: Life is, to some extent, an extended dialogue with your future self about how exactly you are going to let yourself down over the coming years. It's a little too self-conscious though - the premise - we time travel every time we open our mouths, or ruminate over our past, is a simple one after all, and the 'combining' of actual time travel with this inner time travel is awkward at best, but that said, Yu plays with it nicely. I do have one serious criticism. It's rare these days to encounter a recently published book, tackling existential stuff, that sticks to man-male-dad-son, that relegates the mother to being pathetic, the girlfriend/wife/women to being less than potential..... as if women don't struggle similarly a)with their fathers - believe me, my life struggle is NOT with my mother - and b) as if they don't also struggle with the same existential issues that Yu is addressing, to do with anxiety and regret, to moments lost, to lives lived in wasted loops etc. I don't think he meant to do this, however I don't think Yu even gave the issue the teensiest thought either, and was thinking entirely, the whole time as if this was a man-only problem. I'm not saying he shouldn't have written about his father-son problems but that he should have widened the scope - the first quote is demonstrative of what I'm talking about -- I no longer read the word 'man' as including me, haven't for decades. He should have written "Maybe a person is only a true self....." I'm not overly sensitive about this stuff and I don't go around looking for it, but once noticed it simply would not go away. I'm still giving the book a decent rating, benefit of the doubt, I guess. I wouldn't recommend it to hard science fiction readers either. ***1/2

#111 I've got How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe on the TBR shelf at the moment - but I'm not quite sure whether it appeals or not after reading your review!

Congrats on reaching the magical 3 figures!
You were singing the praises of a Virago writer to me a while ago, and the name 'scapes me. Was it Elizabeth Taylor? She does sound like a good writer, even if this wasn't up to her very best efforts. Great review by the way, as per.
I'm sure you're not being hard on that author - sad to say but there are seemingly some otherwise very clever men out there that really do seem to think that they are the only gender that has existential crises (sigh).

I do still recommend it, Rhian, only with that reservation. It is a serious effort and I love that central concept of all of us being time travelers. - There's plenty too, that isn't original - sly references to other science fiction writers and even to Dr. Who, all of which is good fun. And it is such a quick read, you needn't fear wasting your time.

So I have 24 hours more or less with the house totally to myself. I've decided for TOTAL SELF INDULGENCE and I am going to start The Crystal Variations by Sharon Lee and co. curled up on the sofa with a BIG bowl of popcorn, which is likely to be more or less dinner. There was snow here today folks, briefly, but definitely swirling around and the mountain peaks are white.

Only once or twice a year this happens.

Daughter past her permit test today...... oh boy.... the adventure begins.

Thanks Hannah -- I do recommend Taylor. Since she's the Virago I've read the most of this year probably it is her. Angel is probably the best so far.

Uh-oh regarding daughter passing her permit test--of course, this will mean many fewer miles on both the vehicle and you eventually.

Crystal Variations isn't my favorite Liaden story-wise--but it is fascinating to catch up on all that backstory. Enjoy!!

I heard very mixed reactions to the Yu book at the time it was published, with many hard core sf readers being fairly negative, so haven't prioritized it. Good review.

Once or twice a year that you get the house to yourself or that you have snow?

A daughter with a driving permit. "Oh boy" is right...... sending you vibes for safety and sanity.

SNOW!!! And I was feeling cool because we dipped down into the 40s last night. Good grief! OF course, that's about as cold as it got all last winter... I'm avoiding Sharon Lee, and I second the recommendation of E. Taylor, and I also extend my welcome to the harrowing world of teen-age drivers. Your darling daughter is a mature young woman, so she should do well!

Okay, wait. A driving daughter and snow?? Everyone go slowly.

#114 Maybe I will give it a go after all! As you say it is a short book, and I'll need some short books over the next few months to break-up the diet of Victorian tomes, which I'm reading for my nineteenth century literature course.

Congratulations to your daughter, Lucy. I've been through that with two now, and while I'm still nervous every time they pick up the car keys, I'm getting better about it. I hope you enjoyed your self-indulgent evening, it sounds heavenly.

Daughter past her permit test today...... oh boy.... the adventure begins.

I wish you lots of fun Lucy. Congratulations to her, she must be so excited.

haha. Congrats to your daughter Lucy!

Ha ha, Tui! If only it was lots of time alone and only one snowfall! Well...... I sort of like the snow, really, as long as a) the house is working properly, warm and lit and full of good things to eat and b) I don't have to go driving around in it.... and I guess I kind of miss my family when they aren't here. It's good for me to have them gone, it does have a positive effect.

That said I was rudely awoken on this, my special home-retreat by Simon (the tan cat, the bad one) KNOCKING A PARTIAL GLASS OF WATER onto my HEAD while jumping around from here to there at the head of the bed because it was time for me to get up and put food in his bowl - it was weekday wake up time and his food bowl was empty..... he is an evil cat. So much for sleeping in. Oh and after he ate, too fast, he puked.

Heavy heavy frost here - it's about 25 degrees. I brought in all of our plants including this rose that has decided to bloom now (it's in a pot), picked all our remaining flowers, mostly zinnias, snapdragons and marigolds.

Thanks for all the support for our fledgling driver. And me!

Peggy - why are you avoiding Sharon Lee?

It was a very nice evening - I won't even tell you what I had for dinner. Besides getting a flying start on the Lee I also finished up a disk from "Community''s first season, which we are watching together as a family except while I was in Florida they couldn't wait and watched a whole disk. If you haven't seen this and are looking for a very funny sitcom, give it a try. We are seriously loving it. It's set at a Community College - but it's one of those 'magical cast' affairs, where the group of actors quickly jelled into something special.

I should add I taught writing at a community college for several years and while it is very silly, there is a nugget of truth in it.

Back to add: I've got the first fire of the season going in the wood stove.

124: I keep bedside water in a bottle for this reason.

Curling up with a Liaden book sounds most excellent to me, Lucy. Like Roni, that's not my favorite, but I like them all. Great comfort books.

Hi Lucy, I've lurked here the last few times, so thought I'd at least wave and wish you a good weekend. Sounds like your Simon and my Ezra have a lot in common. He wakes me up in the middle of the night if I haven't put out his dish (they get wet food in the day, dry food at night), gobbles it all up and regularly throws up all over the floor. Only he wakes me up by lying on me and purring very loudly, which is much better than having a glass of water thrown at me I guess— he's more of a passive aggressive cat. :-)

I am hugely enjoying this Liaden uni. book, so I can only be happy that they get better and better!

You made me smile, Ilana. No passive-aggressive about Simon, he gets his points across loud and clear. Unusual, in some ways, for a cat. This gobbling thing drives me mad. I try to feed him only a tablespoon at a time, but sometimes I don't really have the choice and have to give him more at one time.

My son was very active in junior theater in his teens, which was 15 or so miles from our house. I think I was happier than he was when he got his license and could drive there himself. Congratulations to you both on your daughter's milestone.

That is exactly my predicament, Reba. Right now I'm holding my breath about whether she'll do the One Acts - they come up right after T-giving for about three weeks of rehearsal - none on Saturdays, thank goodness.

103. ***1/2

I gather that Crystal Soldier was written a lot later and serves as background for the Liaden Universe series proper - The first two books in this three book set follow the founding of the Liaden Universe itself. This is classic space opera, Miller and Lee don't knock themselves out worrying you with how the spaceships work, what fuels them, how they move faster than light. Spacers do age differently than groundlings (or whatever they call themselves), they like to read 'flimsies' (I assume some sort of book) and some of them prefer to write by hand.... they wear fabulous outfits, leathers and 'skins and conceal weaponry in clever places. The plot? Oh yes. Former humans, evolved into 'crystalline entities' the "Sheriekas" now find their own kind repellant and chaotic and have decided to wipe the universe clean of them and most everything else organic. They can't be defeated, only evaded. I enjoyed the two main characters - the M Soldier Jela and the pilot Cantra who turns out to be a lot more than she seems, of course. I was appalled by the premise that it is legal in this universe to breed slave humans 'Batchers', with no rights at all. I accepted it for the purposes of the read, but it was a stretch for me. Anyhow, our guys don't like the batcher biz, of course and assist a runaway. The best thing in it is this tree that Jela rescues off of a dying planet. Couldn't get enough of the tree. Oh it's all good fun and if you like space opera you'll like it. Those who have read the series assure me it gets better and better, and I'm delighted to hear that.

Congratulations on passing the 100 book mark for the year, Lucy!

Hmmm.
I thought that Sharon Lee was some other Sharon, whom I've read and dismissed...... At any rate, I ordered a different 3-fer that's supposed to be the first published of the Liaden Universe: Partners in Necessity, which contains Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, and Carpe Diem, so I'm not going to be reading what you've been reading. How long has this been going on? (Liaden, I mean.)

Lucy here's wishing you a lovely weekend. Love the look of Intimate : An American Family Album in particular of your recent reads (none of which I have by the way). Congratulations also for zipping quietly and efficiently past 100 books.

I didn't congratulate you on passing the 100 book mark Lucy, so I join the other in doing so.

Wanted to thank you for taking the time to pick a book for me toward my 13/13 challenge. It's really a lot of fun seeing what others will pick out of all the books I have sitting and waiting here.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

I'm a little less here these days as -- I'm in the 'musical' part of my year -- two weekends in October spent at various Irish music events. I attend this one with my sister who plays the fiddle and we mostly hang out in our room and play together. I am about to finish the second Lee/Miller book in the 'back-story' - the third book in this volume is set in the already-made Liaden universe and is about traders.

I may just get your books and read along with you, Ilana - I am enjoying these. Not terribly taxing but very enjoyable. This second one isn't quite as well put together as the first, trying, perhaps to do too much, not sure.

Enjoy your music, Sib. We miss you around here.

What Becky said, Lucy. Very cool to be making music with your sister and going to Irish music events.

#137 & 138 What Becky and Joe said Lucy. Enjoy your musical October!

Lucy, do you know the air Crested Hens? I've lately become very fond of it. It's actually a Breton tune but it seems it's very popular among Irish musicians. It's a real beauty.

TK I don't know that one, but I am going to go look for it, pronto. I hope I can find someone good playing it on line someplace.

I am home again, a bit dazed, but all in one peace. Lots of new tunes to learn.

I did finish up a book, but really I was within twenty pages of the end and read about six pages at a time over a three day period!

104. ✔#5 ***8

Crystal Dragon by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Second novel in the huge tome I'm wading through The Crystal Variation. This one was a bit less put together than the first - I still have no idea how the Liaden Universe got 'found' or 'made' or what - and I did reread pieces more than once. It never quite jelled for me what the 'dramliza' energy beings were doing...... but oh well..... the story/situation/characters were all terrifically fun, so I'm not going to be a spoilsport - so yeah, the science is fluffy, but that's not really the point of space opera, now is it? ****

Glad to hear that you are home again and have fun learning all the new tunes. :)

105. ***

I am known to loathe flying and someone gave me this little tome, Why I Hate Flying as a gift. Henry Mintzberg is a student of management - that is, a 'management thinker' whatever that is, and so flies around a lot to conferences, etc. Point being I was genuinely looking forward to maybe learning why the airlines are run so appallingly inhumanely. But while Mintzberg drops a few pearls here and there, mostly he skitters around between anecdotes of particular trips, lustful moments, and the same old complaints that we all make, with no.... explananations or even speculations as to WHY, say, the food is so bad or whatever. Like, maybe there is an FAA regulation..... ? Even the interior design of airplanes is a total mystery to me. Those overhead bins. Surely there is a better way to do almost everything to do with putting together the working innards of a plane so that 80 yr. olds with wrists as thin as the pole part of a golf club aren't trying to lift a 50 lb bag into an overhead bin and etcetera? So I was disappointed. It was funny here and there and not utterly terrible and if you see it and want to give it to someone who hates flying, go ahead. But don't expect any insights or suggestions. Just amusing kvetching. ***

>143 sibylline:: You're fight that there has to be some reason why airplanes are as they are. I'm sure the ultimate reason is "money" but I wish I knew more of the intermediate justifications. Disappointing that someone had the opportunity and didn't follow through.

Lucy, I thought of you during my last (7 mile!) run along the Cliff Walk back in Newport, RI (I'm home now and trying to catch up after being away for a week). As I ran along, I passed a woman walking a very long-haired Corgi! I had never seen a Corgi with such long hair. He was quite handsome.

I loved that you found that you have some ancestors who probably were part of the wave who fled the Spanish Inquisition, moved through the Caribbean Islands, and ended up in the Rhode Island (and then Philly) area. It seems likely that he was in Newport.

My husband's ancestors - but yes -- it is exciting. A long-haired Corgi - I think those are called 'Fluffies' and it is or used to be a 'fault' - my last Corgi had a Fluffy sister who was completely adorable. I'm coming back in a sec with a photo if I can find a good one.

The thing I don't get Tad, is that much is done in the name of 'efficiency' that is anything but efficient, and is dehumanizing to boot, so that people begin to act badly because they are inwardly furious and hurt and so get passive aggressive....... I think it is, overall, amazing that people are as polite as they are. I, for one, am waiting patiently for more, smaller airports to choose from with smaller planes etc. I don't actually think the huge airports etc. are at all efficient - in fact - they are wasteful beyond belief: lateness, crowds, parking issues, lines -- time and money wasteful. The whole insanity of it never ceases to astonish me. I really hoped this fellow would address some of those issues in an interesting and informative way.

I may just get your books and read along with you

What, all of the 30 that were selected for me? I'm sure that's not what you meant...

Great review of Why I Hate Flying. I wanted to thumb it—and why is it not posted on the main page, I ask you?

I used to LOOOOOVE flying when I was a tiny little thing back in the 70s while it was still relatively glamorous (compared to today, it WAS, incredibly so). It always amazes me that we humans take something incredible like FLYING so much for granted. But that's just me.

Hi Lucy. Loved your review of the Flying book. I remember my grandmother, when I was a little girl, coming off the train looking like a million bucks--hat, gloves, shoes to match her purse, perfect hair and makeup, looking like she was going to a glamour shoot. Those were different days, that's for sure. I hate to fly, and if it's at all possible to drive, then that's what I do. "Dehumanizing"--that's a great word for the way I feel about it, and it seems to be getting worse all the time.

What are you reading these days? I'm still plowing through Clarissa and may be forever. After all this time, I'm almost a third of the way through. Hilarious.

I have to go look at your thread, Ilana, it was some particular book or books --- now I can't remember.

When I was little and we flew someplace we wore gloves and dresses with starchy petticoats. We must have been quite uncomfortable but I don't remember that at all, just how fun and exciting it was.

The main reason I never go much of anywhere (compared to what I might like to do) is because of how much I loathe getting in an airplane.

I am reading some, Becky but I seem to be busy busy lately and reading less. Finishing up a 3 volume SF tome, (3 books in one) - the last book is dragging. A little bit into a book called Serious Men by Manu Joseph which I like when I do read it, but I seem to veer toward the cotton candy sf for now. I'm also listening to The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace - the reader is excellent. I am driving around the usual crazy amount, so I'm making good progress with that. - Somehow it hasn't made it into my "Currently" spot, so I'll fix that. I'm also reading, v. slowly Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez which I have had on my shelves for well over ten years.....It's the kind of book I find I LOVE listening too, but I feel that since I've OWNED this book all this time I should READ it...... not try to find an audio library copy....

As long as you take breaks, Becky? Really, only a third? It does seem as though you have been reading Clarissa for quite some time.

I've been reading C since January, with 15 weeks off for my genealogy class--15 weeks off for good behavior--haha. It's one of those Penguin books with a #5 or so font, and 1499 pages. If this thing were printed in a readable font, it would easily be 3,000 or more pages long. I recently had to get new glasses, and I blame it on this book--I am not kidding.

Interesting list of books, Sib. I've been meaning to read Arctic Dreams forever. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

Oh my, since January - but when you subtract 30 weeks - well - you might should get 2/3 by the beginning of next year? Still, it's a long time to be reading one book. Small print is getting to be more and more annoying, although I have to admit. I wrecked my eyes doing a very tiny needlepoint project about twenty years ago - I just couldn't stop myself even though I could tell it was doing damage.

I do think they had the right idea back when when very long book was published in two or three volumes. Of course, now we have the choice of adjusting print size on an e-reader, and it is likely that that will be a factor that pushes me toward that way of reading at least some of the time. Several times in the last year I have done a sort of half and half -- partly reading the e-book but then finding the physical book to finish - also to poke around and reread bits. The e-reader just has a long way to go.

I think someone should come up with a feature where you can just 'flip' the pages back the way you would a book, brushing the surface with your fingers a certain way, then just 'mark' a passage by tapping, word then sentence etc. Automatically, that would go to a 'note' page with a bit of text, so you could find it easily. These all seem like no brainers and possibly quite do-able..... I wish I was younger, I would fling myself into this stuff.

Fun to see someone enjoying the underknown Liaden books, Lucy. I enjoyed Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez way back when, and should take a look at Arctic Dreams.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Lucy, that's a brilliant idea about e-readers. That's what bugs me about my Kindle: I can't go back easily and reread a bit to refresh my memory or double check my facts. That's why real books will always win, for me.

Not fond of flying either. I invariably get sick from the canned air on the plane, with someone with the latest flu or bronchial infection doing a number on all of us. Gack. Just too much bad stuff about exhausted and burnt out pilots, and faulty aging aircraft. It's an act of courage to get on one but it's the only affordable way to get to England and Scotland.

I don't know anything about current flying. My father flew me in single-engine private planes though from the time I was an infant. I loved the physical sensation - and yes, we looped the loop and did barrel rolls and the crop dusters swoop down and up over local fields...........amusement park rides never held any particular thrills for me. No matter how faulty and aging the aircraft, they are probably a lot safer than the B-24 that he and his crew rescued from grounding and flew home from Guam at the end of WWII. That's not a particularly cogent argument for getting on a commercial flight, I realize.
Lucy, I don't have all that much trouble going back to find something I want to reread on my Kindle. You can bookmark pages and highlight sentences and write notes that are immediately accessible. In fact, I like that part of the e-reading experience a lot. That said, there's nothing quite like being able to flip back swiftly and easily although you can search for a key word or two. It's doable, but that's still a little clumsy.

Yes - I have used those features, Peggy, but they are, to me, cumbersome - even irritating compared to the ease of tab and page flipping in a real book.

That is quite cool that you flew around a lot as a kid. I've never much liked anything that didn't involve being earthbound - so sailing is not something I care much for either although there the problem tends to be boredom too. I do have a sensitive inner ear though and get nauseous very quickly which might have something to do with my lack of interest in those things. I can't even watch bouncy filming anymore without getting sick immediately. Which I know I've said before.

106. ***1/2

The Crystal Variation contains three novels of which Balance of Trade is the third. (See reviews at comments 131 and 141 for one and two.) There is a certain type of space opera where I find that I keep on reading even when I am not quite sure why...... and yet, I do know why, there is just enough character, plot, and originality (even if it is intermittent) to keep me going. These three novels, I understand, while showing the genesis and/or early days of the Liaden Universe, are good, but not 'the best' of the series. I am not going to rush off to find the rest of the books, but I hope I will get to them when the time is right for more pleasant and undemanding reading.

Lucy, I really agree with you about the disadvantages of ereaders but I find that the Kindle app on my i-Pad works much more like a "real" book.

I quite enjoy Balance of Trade myself, but it definitely benefits from already knowing quite a bit about the Liaden Universe, as do the two Dragon books. You simply can't beat starting with Agent of Change--and Lucy, you will LOVE the turtles. That book should elevate the series at least threefold in your estimation, if not more. Peggy is starting at the best place!

And I suspect I caught my virus on the plane to Seattle--ugh!

Very interesting discussion about flying. I belong into the group who don't enjoy flying and wherever possible I use my car. That's one of the reasons why I commute by car between Germany and England.
Wish you a great weekend Lucy. :)

I didn't used to hate it is the thing; it was just a way to get from here to there. But now I only fly when I have no other choice to get somewhere I really want to go.

I haven't checked out the i-pad route. My husband does have one, but I don't quite resonate with it when I try it. I am trying hard to be open-minded.

I'm putting Agent of Change on the wl and will be on the look out for it, Roni.

Back to add - I'm sort of alternating mysteries and sf, these days, only it is ridiculous as I have about ten sf books to every mystery. - I did just read three sf, so one mystery is in order, ANYHOW, the winner is.... Jar City which I know many of you liked and my spousal unit also liked.

Hi Lucy,
I was this close :) to getting a kindle, then changed my mind. I want an iPad. I will rarely read from the screen I reckon so will get library ebooks, and all the old ones that are out of copyright. All this will happen when I have accumulated 1000 spare dollars, so not that soon!

>162 sibylline:: I'm sort of alternating mysteries and sf, these days

I'm a little under the weather and desperate for something entirely engrossing that doesn't require much brainpower in one of those categories. Unfortunately, everything that I have on my TBR shelves fails to fall into that category! Maybe I should go through old books and re-read something.

I'm sorry you aren't feeling well, Tad. There must be something???? My TBR shelves being so extensive, there is something for every mood and situation....... I guess that's one good thing about it?

So are you all battened down for the beeg storm? I seem to remember you saying that your town gets flooded. I hope your house is up high. It's older, right? so probably it is. People were more sensible about that sort of thing in the way back.

Yes, we're maybe 80' above the high water mark, so no danger of real flooding. We do occasionally get a little water in the basement if it comes down faster than it can run off. Other than that, patio umbrellas are in, potted plants in protected corner of the house. I'll probably have to go out during the storm and clear gutters since we're surrounded by mature trees and the wind will bring tons of leaves down.

That's good. While you were here I took the liberty of rambling over to your pending list.... Everything else does look a bit too serious for a person not feeling well. There was one of those Flavia mysteries too, I think.... but that might be too silly. I found Absurdistan quite funny and entertaining. Very playful. Stegner is a serious writer, yes, but he isn't depressing, more insightful, and his writing style is not too demanding. And I see a Pratchett I haven't read, but since I've 'come over' to the Pratchett side I have loved everything.

Very good, I won't worry.

I'm reading Jar City at present, a bit unimpressed with both the translation and the editing, but I am sufficiently gripped by the story to let it pass.....

On the Sandy front - Vermont was so badly burned (wrong metaphor, but you know what I mean) by Irene, that officialdom is being v. cautious. Fine with me. So no after school stuff today. So far nothing much, a little wind and rain. But up in the stratosphere I am impressed by how fast the cloud cover is moving, really scampering.

Lucy - I am so very far behind here, but hoping to catch up. In the meantime I am stopping down here just to let you know that I didn't forget about you. Please send out a rescue team if you don't hear from me again in the very near future.

Now they've decided no school tomorrow either. We're fine with that - my daughter's been fighting a stomach virus so she'll get a day off. The wind is kicking up now, and that is what the main concern is.

I know how wildly busy you are Mamie, so no worries, stop in when you can and don't worry if you can't/

Just stopping in to say that I hope that scampering clouds way up high are the whole of your Sandy experience.

We'll be thinking good thoughts for you, Lucy.

Wind picking up here too, Lucy. It is supposed to hit us in the middle of the night. The large trees surrounding us are my concern.

Tui, stay safe. We broke my heart a couple of years ago and cut the crowns out of the giant oaks in front of our house. A wind that would take them down now would have blown the house apart anyway. We needed to do it because we have been through some real damage, but OH! How I miss those gorgeous trees!

As of 9 - just wind and rain, though when I took the dog out I found some surprising things had blown about while we were indulging in a movie. I can see across the valley that everyone has their power. All good.

We don't have any big trees near our house - super big trees are relatively rare in VT anyway - and always are in some protected spot. But we do have many trees that have relatively shallow roots due to the mix of wet and clay and bedrock that characterizes the terrain.

Back to Jar City. Ugh. I know what the title means now. I won't quite finish it tonight, or maybe I will, a quick read. And certainly unfolding to be much more complex that at first appearance.

stay safe and well everyone

Stay safe, Lucy, Posey and family.

From here as well, have seen the horrible pics on tellie, and hope everyone affected by the storms stays well and cozy.

Lucy- I'm glad you are enjoying Jar City. The good news is, the next couple of books are even better.

107. ***1/2 #8 off the shelf!

Other than the fact that it is a mediocre translation w/mediocre copy-editing Jar City is a classic procedural with all the traditional ingredients: a murder that looks simple but isn't, a hard-bitten divorced detective dude worried about his health, a child of his (of course he's divorced since he's impossible to live with) in and out of trouble and so on. It isn't wildly original, in other words, but it's solid and entertaining with some moments of great humor or insight: - during an interview with a pilot in a house where there had been a murder: Erlendur looked around the room and thought to himself that he wouldn't even board a flight simulator with this man. I also like procedurals set in a place that isn't known to me where the geography and the way the people do things matters - it was fair to good, I'd say, in this book. It is a given, for example, that Icelandic people only commit boring murders - almost a running joke in the book. Iceland is so small that in any given year there might only be a few, with very clear guilt. Very few people go missing either. My one irritation (besides the technical gripes mentioned first thing) is that we didn't get the contents of the note on the dead man until Indridason was good and ready to let us have it. I put up with it, but it was a bit too blatant 'delayed gratification'. Did he want to do that or did some editor tell him to do that? ***1/2

Stayed up late reading, very very windy and much rainier than I expected from the weather fellows' estimations (10th to quarter inch) - things flapping here and there. I slept well, but woke up this early this morning before dawn KNOWING something wasn't right, like Miss Clavell. I'd heard the generator come on and I just knew it had stopped too soon. So I trudged out to the propane tank in the dark and wet and sure enough tank was dry. But it looks as though we will have intermittent sun, and the batteries are up at 80% which is plenty for day usage with no extras, and I have my camping gear to make my tea and coffee (or else it would be a crisis) and I'm sure the Fuel fellows will be here by the end of the day. So no furries. The spousal unit does get a naughty mark for going off on a business trip without checking the tank although I do take some share in the responsibility.... it's an area with a lack of clarity about who's supposed to keep track. And the Fuel folk are supposed to come quite often because we were having problems with our solar batteries, so they may take on a bit of the load too.

It's beautiful this morning, huge black clouds alternating with bright blue sky w/ dawn colour, pink and yellow/white, but then a big gust of wind will blow through or one of the black clouds will settle overhead and open up. More like weather you see on the Cape or by the shore, which makes perfect sense, since that is what it is.

I think we've got off quite unscathed here, and the kids certainly are lucky, no school, but a very nice day to play in. Haven't checked the news yet, but perhaps I will now.

"Play" meaning, lying about reading......

Good news is the Fuel folk are on the case and will be here soon.

Satisfying to have responsibility properly assigned. And nice that you're getting a picturesque sky from the storm. My sky is an undifferentiated gray.

Hi Lucy, glad you are well. Love the Miss Clavell reference!

We have been without power since 6pm Monday, at the mercy of PECO which is coping with their largest outage ever. Thankfully I stocked up on ground coffee (vs whole bean, learned that lesson during a snow storm!) and can ignite gas burners on the stove to heat water. We use a low-tech French press to make coffee.

No school, office closed and can't really work from home without power. Gotta knit and read I guess.

It occurs to me I should copy and post this on my thread.

I'm happy to know the fuel posse is on its way, and that all will be well. I'll venture to guess that the propane tank will now be assigned clearly to one person!
Thanks for your good review of *Jar City*. I have a copy, but I won't be in a hurry to read it.. Oh dear. I think I have a copy of the sequel on my Kindle too. Enjoy your day!
(Laura, a day of knitting and reading sounds ideal.)

Oh I think Jar City is worth reading, Peggy, esp if you like hard-boiled crime novels and I expect I'll read the sequel(s) - I won't buy them though, but borrow them from the library which I know has them - 3 1/2 from me means go for it, but don't expect to be wowed. I've been realizing that since joining LT I simply stop reading anything that I can tell after a bit is a 3 or less. I simply don't have time when there are so many much better books around. I keep the lower numbers there to remind me how low writers can go and still get published.

The fuel has been delivered and all is well. I am much relieved although feeling a bit scatter-brained as those kinds of things tend to rattle me.

My next 'fun' book is one of Charles de Lint's YA fantasies The Riddle of the Wren - in my book case for wayyyyyyy too long and a quick read, I hope.

I seem to turn away from the Manu Joseph with alarming ease, even though I like it very much when I am reading it. I don't think it is the fault of the book at all which under other circs. I think I would have sat and read delightedly all at one go. I am possessed with laziness and self-indulgence at the moment, I'm afraid.

I don't know whether you infected me or I infected you. At any rate, that kind of laziness has quickly spread.

A Lazy Reader Virus. I wonder how long it will last? Will I get up one day soon wild to tackle Finnegan's Wake, d'you think??

Another lazy self-indulgent reader checking in. We're ok up here too but the eye is still moving our way and we aren't over it yet. More to come early tomorrow morning or in the wee small hours. Glad you are getting the propane situation sorted out, Lucy. I don't know about your area, but our temps are supposed to plummet after the storm goes through, with its warming effect. Be warm and safe!

I really liked that review of Jar City, Lucy. Right on the money with my experience of that book, including enjoying the armchair traveling.

As viruses go, I think I don't mind this one. (Lazy Reader Virus, if you are just tuning in.) Already almost halfway through the deLint. I like it quite a bit. It was his 'first' book - not the first published one, but the first one he wrote - and he says he wrote it over and over again - not even realizing, in some way, that he was doing just that. Sounds quite familiar to me.

Always glad, Joe, to have a response confirmed by another reader.

By the way, the sequels to Jar City get better and better. I hope you'll try the next!

Glad all seems to be well in your corner of the world.

First, Sandy knocked this unexpected guest off her broom. She seems to thrive on jelly beans and gummy bears, and is quite well-behaved:

Today, this interesting person, named Kenaya (not sure about spelling) needed a lift to school. She says she is from an internet story...... The chain saw box, I noticed, was entirely filled with candy to distribute during the day.

Far too pretty to be a threat - or maybe that's the threat!!!!!

Something like that.......

How astoundingly cute! Love it. No need to repeat that I used the "cute" word.

>182 sibylline: "Play" meaning, lying about reading......
of course! :)

>195 sibylline: love the costume, and the generosity :)

Lucy, is that your daughter? She's GORGEOUS! And I love the costumes. Thanks for posting the pics.

Lucy - hahaha if Sandy was washing up witches as delightful as your daughter I don't think the Hurricane would have upset the lives of so many people.

Yes Paul, that's the Little Darling and merci du compliment. Somewhere I also have a picture of her as a lady pirate. She has worn a different costume pretty much every day (except yesterday when we barely got dressed) since Saturday. She has been DEEPLY into Hallowe'en since her first real dressup as a Cowgirlgirl (that's what she called herself) when she was two.

The most magical Hallowe'en moment ever was when she was five and even though we were still mostly in Philadelphia we were usually here in Vermont for Hallowe'en when we could swing it, and the LD was dressed up as Tinkerbelle and GUESS WHO arrived at the door. Peter himself.

I wish I had been able to take video of that moment. Sheer bliss. Even now the two of them die of happy embarrassment when the topic comes up, as in, they don't really mind. They've been friends ever since and he was especially nice to her (he's a year older) her first year at her new high school when she knew hardly anyone.

Again :), beautiful pictures of your daughter.
Haha thank you for sharing the cute story about your daugters 5th Halloween. So, Peter and Tinkerbelle are still friends that's so lovely.

Wish you a great Halloween!

108. ***1/2

This was the first novel written by Charles de Lint and not published for awhile. As such, I regard it as a novel that hints of the future, a 'learning-the-craft' novel with some of the framework a bit overworked in some places and a bit weak in others, including slightly too much homage to JRRT - but overall showing a sturdy promise. A bit the same way Jar City is a solid exemplar of a certain kind of detective novel, so this is a prime example of classic fantasy. Definitely YA also. ***1/2

This was the 9th book this month that I read 'off the shelf' - I'm very happy about that although my shelves don't seem all that much better, I think they might be just slightly less bulgy.

And now I must simply settle down with the Manu Joseph and read to the end.

I've had a surprisingly quiet Hallowe'en as my daughter went over to a friend's house to watch some horrible movie or other and from there to other friend's in the slightly larger town near our village where the parents always have a party on Hallowe'en. So I'm off now to pick her up.

HI Lucy.

I enjoy the books of Charles de Lint. Have you read A Circle of Cats?

Congratulations on nine books off your shelf during October. I would do better in that category, except I keep traveling to the two local libraries to pick up books that our LT members have recommended.

Happy Halloween.

194,195: Looks like an entertaining person to have around the house.

That's a very sweet story about Peter and Tinkerbell!

Just to wrap up Hallowe'en, when I picked up the LD last night, she flopped into the front seat and sort of goes limp and says, "oh I'm so glad Hallowe'en is over. It's so much work when you're into it." And I was thinking that it's really one of the only 'childish' things she's still into, dressing up. For her it's about the freedom to dress up, candy is just a bonus.

Tink and Peter meeting at the door--you just can't plan these wonderful things!